Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is a noninvasive imaging tool with a wide range of cardiovascular applications. Apart from CMR, two common modalities for routine, non-invasive, diagnostic cardiac imaging are echocardiography (cardiac ultrasound) and nuclear SPECT. Although other imaging modalities exist for every clinical application of CMR, no single modality that can match the comprehensiveness of CMR. Despite the unique and broad applicability of CMR, it is underutilized due to its relatively poor cost effectiveness. As such, there is almost no market for Cardiac MRI (CMR) machines.
Conventionally, it is understood that signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improves with increasing magnetic field strength. Over the past two decades, the trend has been to design MRI scanners with higher and higher field strengths in order to increase SNR. The increase in SNR is traded for improved spatial and temporal resolutions and reduced acquisition times. Increasing the magnetic field strength, however, requires larger magnets with more challenging specifications. Therefore, higher field MRI systems tend to be considerably more expensive and thus less cost effective for applications, such as CMR, that do not significantly benefit from the higher field strength. In addition, higher magnetic fields may negatively affect image quality, patient safety, and comfort.